Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Calm after the storm

Probably more like an eye rather than the calm, but still. Today was so much better. The first thing I did on getting to my room was put up the posters I made last night. A huge relief.

The turning of the calendar page seems to have prompted Mother Nature to turn too. This afternoon was a clear azure sky, with a distinct chill in the air, especially in the shadows. Appropriate, because...

I was a hardass today. I spent time going over the rules and consequences that I told you about yesterday. And a noise-level chart too. I was very stern. It seemed to have some effect. What really did help was putting names on the board. Even the problematic ones were all, Noooo! when I followed through on their misbehavior. Thank goodness I didn't have any repeat offenders, because I don't yet have a note to send home. I'm going to make one tonight.

There are some nice things that I can relate about yesterday. One was announcing jobs for my last (good) class. Each time I said who got what job, they were like, Yesss! All excited. It was so cute. Also, when I got home, I had my first email from a student, asking about the homework, that it wasn't on the website. It was neat.
And of course, Ms F and Ms J talked to me and reassured me that things will get better and that I'll be okay. Thank you so much to them.

So, today was better. I was sterner, but I could have been even bitchier. I'll have to work on that. (No, I'm totally serious; everyone agrees that to make it in your first year, you MUST embrace your inner bitch.) It can be kind of fun, playacting the villian. BWAH HA HA!!

I had even more great help today, from both literacy coaches and Ms F again. Two of them helped me with my bulletin board, and one went over in more detail how to use notebooks and workshops, AND gave me a great setup of the scant "furniture" I have to create a decent-looking library.

After school, I stayed for about an hour. I put together the bulletin board, except the rubric, which I'll do tonight...or tomorrow at lunch. I organized my desk a little more. I put up erasable memo-paper on which to write my homework, objective and standard each day. Again, it is a huge relief to finally get these small but gigantically-important things up and done. It only took me a week! Sheesh. But still, hurrah that it's done. Well, not done, but well on its way.